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Imprisoned by the Deep State

If you thought the United Kingdom’s jailing of Tommy Robinson was something that couldn’t happen in America, think again:

The Daily Caller has a recent video of Alan Dershowitz, who normally leans to the Left. However, he says of the jailing of Paul Manafort:

“He has never been convicted of anything. He is as innocent as you and I. And the idea of locking somebody up before a trial is so obnoxious to our Constitution that every civil libertarian should be up in arms. What they can do if they think that he’s tampering with witnesses is: they can subject him to home arrest, take away his computer … they can have all kinds of restrictions, but the idea of putting somebody in jail before they’ve been convicted is an enactment of civil liberties” he said.

Dershowitz, who was often thought of as liberal, has recently become a defender of President Trump in the media over the Russia investigation.

Dershowitz said, “I think the key point is to make sure that in an effort to get Trump, we don’t diminish our civil liberties and create bad precedents…”

“Who’s trying to get Trump?” Stelter asked.

“A lot of people are trying to get Trump, a lot of radicals, and a lot of lefties,” Dershowitz said.

“A lot of people — a lot of my friends and relatives are furious at me because they want to get Trump, and I’m in their way, I’m standing in the way by of getting Trump by raising Article Two issues, civil liberties issues, civil rights issues… If you don’t think there are people are out there that trying to get Trump, just like they were trying to get Hillary Clinton, people were trying to get Hillary Clinton — ‘lock her up.’”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So who is Paul Manafort?

The answer would easily be a book, given how long he’s been in Washington. But for the sake of our cautionary tale, here is where he crosses paths with President Trump:

In February 2016 Manafort approached Donald Trump through a mutual friend, Thomas J. Barrack Jr. He pointed out his experience advising presidential campaigns in the United States and around the world, described himself as an outsider not connected to the Washington establishment, and offered to work without salary. In March 2016 he joined Trump’s presidential campaign to take the lead in getting commitments from convention delegates. On June 20, 2016, Trump fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and promoted Manafort to the position. Manafort gained control of the daily operations of the campaign as well as an expanded $20 million budget, hiring decisions, advertising, and media strategy.

On June 9, 2016, Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner were participants in a meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya and several others at Trump Tower. A British music agent, saying he was acting on behalf of Emin Agalarov and the Russian government, had told Trump Jr. that he could obtain damaging information on Hillary Clinton if he met with a lawyer connected to the Kremlin. At first Trump Jr. said the meeting had been primarily about the Russian ban on international adoptions (in response to the Magnitsky Act) and mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton; later he said the offer of information about Clinton had been a pretext to conceal Veselnitskaya’s real agenda.

Paul Manafort does not appear to be a nice man. But he deserves equal treatment under the law. If certain members of The Deep State are not being jailed before their crimes are assessed, then he should at least be free on bond.

This case is important because the rule of law is under attack. As any constitutional lawyer/professor — say, Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus from Harvard — can and will attest.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller finally has sent someone to jail. Paul Manafort.

For nothing having to do with Russia or the Trump campaign.

For alleged witness tampering in a criminal case based on Manafort’s long ago dealings unrelated to Trump or the campaign.

Manafort’s conduct in contacting potential witnesses was incredibly stupid, particularly for someone on bail and who has the full weight of the Special Counsel team focused on putting him in jail.

All of this is taking place because Manafort made the life-error of associating with the Trump campaign at a time when the FBI and DOJ, aided by opposition research paid for by Hillary and the DNC, was seeking to portray Trump as colluding with the Russians.

Mueller has yet to put anyone in jail, or even charge anyone, for alleged campaign collusion. So Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn and a handful of others will face the choice of capitulating and taking a plea, or suffering a complete financial collapse of their lives and those of their families due to the cost of litigating against a Special Counsel team that has all the time and money in the world.

And one of their commenters reminds us of Mueller’s unsavory past:

Mueller can delay the trial over and over and over again almost as long as he likes. And for what? The case against Manafort is over ten years old and was kicked to the curb by the FBI/DOJ years ago.

Mueller has not been able to get Manafort to ‘sing’ let alone ‘compose’ testimony against Trump, so now he increases the pressure. Remember, Mueller put four men he knew to be innocent of the crime charged in prison where the survivors stayed for decades; two of the four dies in prison.

This ‘witness tampering’ was known back in February, it is NOT a new charge, it is extortion.In fact, it would be a good idea to peruse all the comments following that post. Many of those people have background information.

By the way, it took a long time to find any material on Manafort that didn’t line up with Deep State thinking. Even so-called “conservative” sites were a disappointment. Legal Insurrection’’s post was not listed on any searches; I thought of its founder, William Jacobson, on my own, and

hastened over to see if he’d written anything. Turns out, he did. Yesterday. You’ll find he has all the pertinent legalese from Scribd.

So, America, we’re in the soup, too. The cannibals’ pot.

Afterword from the Baron:

“Catch-22,” the old woman repeated, rocking her head up and down. “Catch-22. Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing.”

[…]

“Didn’t they show it to you?” Yossarian demanded, stamping about in anger and distress. “Didn’t you even make them read it?”

“They don’t have to show us Catch-22,” the old woman answered. “The law says they don’t have to.”

7 thoughts on “Imprisoned by the Deep State”

When I first heard of this, I was shocked. This not done in your typical white collar case. I just can’t think of a nationally known case where where this has happene

It’s quite clear the Deep State has openly declared war on anyone associated with Trump. They are breaking all the rules to do so, which is very. very worrisome. I suspect they will eventually move openly against Trump at some point. They will watch our response or lack there of and move accordingly.

That said, many on the right will rue the day they remained silent on this. Folks don’t understand that such abuse of power can be also used against any of us now. Consider this. Manafort is a nationally known figure and the Deep State came right out in the open and frog marched him into prison without a trial. Imagine what they’d do to bloggers and others who they take a disliking to.

“Remember, Mueller put four men he knew to be innocent of the crime charged in prison where the survivors stayed for decades; two of the four dies in prison.”

The statement above is not accurate. The accurate statement would be: “Remember, Mueller KEPT four men he knew to be innocent of the crime of the crime charged in prison where the survivors stayed for decades; two of the four died in prison.”
Mueller was NOT the original prosecutor in the murder trial during which the Boston office of the FBI framed four innocent men for a gangland murder, in order to protect a FBI informant. Mueller in his role of acting US Attorney in Boston wrote letters to the parole board to keep innocent men incarcerated for a crime that they did not commit. It was all about protecting an FBI rat from his just punishment. It was par for the course up in Beantown. Ah, the stories I could tell…

Then there is the story that came out after Trump pardoned Scooter Libby. Libby was convicted of perjury because of discrepencies between his testimony and that of a New York Times reporter, Judith Martin. He was found to be completely innocent of the original “crime” of outing a CIA agent based in Langley named Valerie Plame, who was supposedly under cover. Such a designation is usually reserved for agents stationed overseas. They wouldn’t let Martin see her notes about the contacts, forcing her to rely on her memory. When she got her notes back after the trial, she compared them with her testimony and Libby’s and discovered that at every point were she and Libby disagreed, her notes supported Libby. Accordingly she did go to the appropriate authorities with this information and got Lobby’s license to practice law restored in the District of Columbia. Obviously, Fitzgerald and Comey knew that they were framing an innocent man, supposedly their real target was Libby’s boss, Dick Cheney, and they were trying to get Libby to “sing” or “compose”.

Alan Dershowitz is a principled liberal, his core value is respect for the rule of law. America is lucky to have him. Your average inner-city hoodlum would be unaware of this, but any person charged with murder, anywhere in the USA, who telephones Dershowitz’s law practice asking for free legal representation is guaranteed to get it. AD told me this himself. I queried him on the claim. He responded: “NOBODY charged with murder will be refused legal representation by my office. Obviously, I can’t run their case for them personally, but I try to take a look at every file to make sure there is nothing glaring that my people are missing.” So if any GoV reader in the States is ever unfortunate enough to be charged with murder, do bear this in mind. The representation you receive will be of infinitely higher quality than that from a court-appointed attorney because the young lawyers who AD selects (imagine the ratio of applicants to vacancies) to do pro bono work in his office are, understandably, the creme de la creme. And if the proprietors of GoV itself were ever charged with a “hate crime” for what is written on this site, AD would almost certainly take on the case for free because he’s also deeply committed to the First Amendment.

They clearly think give Manafort a taste of prison life and he will quickly say anything Mueller and his desperate team want. It’s now way past finding the truth and all they want is to bring down Trump. But Manafort may prove to be a tougher nut to crack than they think.

The root of this particular evil is the special counsel law. Special counsels like Mueller operate outside the normal Justice Department chain of command and have the ability and resources to do whatever they want. In structure, they are amazingly close to the infamous English Star Chamber, which had the mandate of prosecuting and punishing aristocrats and officials normally immune from the king’s justice.

The effect of special counsels are to weaken the power of elected officials with respect to the bureaucracy. How many career bureaucrats have been prosecuted or investigated by a special counsel? None.

It is well known that anyone under the cross-hairs of a special counsel will be ruined financially with legal fees. This is “lawfare” of the worst kind. The goal of the average person would not to be innocent, but to not come under focus.

I hear Republicans who should know better call for another special prosecutor to be appointed for Hillary Clinton. This is more “hair of the dog that bit you”. This would strengthen the precedent of unrestrained investigator misconduct, while not making us a smidgen safer. Hillary is certainly a willing and well-paid tool of the Deep State, but throwing her to the wolves would not damage the Deep State in the least.

Recall that during the original Watergate scandal, the ballyhooded reporting of Woodward and Bernstein was simply receiving leaks from an FBI official with an axe to grind, and (kind of) confirming those leaks. The legwork was actually done by federal prosecutors firmly in the Justice Department chain of command and completely subject to department ethics and constraints on abuses. Once a special prosecutor gets appointed, they just sit around kicking at ashes and dumping garbage on anyone walking nearby.

Ken Starr uncovered the fact that Clinton had an embarrassing encounter with an intern, and then lied to cover it up. The counsel investigating the outing of Valerie Plame knew the leaker from the beginning. The leaker turned himself in as the inadvertent source. The whole investigation was kabuki theater.

The existence of the special counsel law is as great a threat to our liberties and form of representative government as any other single entity. It is a classic trade-off between security (no offender gets off unpunished) and liberty (the power of the government to damage individuals is strictly constrained in the absence of conviction).

I would have thought they – the Dems – would have eliminated this form of witchhunt after Clinton’s imbroglio with Starr. But they didn’t, though there were many opportunities to do so. Perhaps they wanted another Nixon, thus all the muttering about impeachment.